


Of Panic Attacks and Urges to Hug

by sorensen



Series: Of Panic Attacks and Urges to Hug [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventually Named Warrior of Light, F/M, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Multi-Classed Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-10 02:27:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20520449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorensen/pseuds/sorensen
Summary: The Warrior of Light is a bit broken, but she knew that long before Emet-Selch told her as much, she just didn't expect him to provide free advice in between the moments of trying to sabotage the First.





	Of Panic Attacks and Urges to Hug

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly the start of a collection, depending on where I can figure out where to go from here, but really an excuse to write 17k words of how I think the WoL prob feels sometimes.

She's never done well alone. She'd grown up constantly around her parents, her siblings, cousins, aunts, and uncles. There was always someone to play with, always three or four extra people at the dinner table. The warrior was seven before she remembered ever being alone. When the seventh umbral calamity happens, in an instant, half her family is gone. Her mother is killed with the initial impact, her father by a tumbling building in the days after. The warrior had been visiting one of the many cousins when the moon crashes, her parents having sent her as far away as possible, and that's when the first panic attack happens.

She can't breathe, can't see, everything is static. It takes her aunt, squeezing her hand in rhythmic patterns before her senses begin to come back one at a time. It's not the last time she has a panic attack in the days following, but eventually, she learns to sense when one is about to happen and try and calm down. She doesn't always succeed, but for a time, she doesn't feel broken.

In the five years that follow, she wants to be angry at the world, but her Uncle convinces her that instead of wanting to use that anger against everyone, she should use it to protect. Use the pain and rage she felt to prevent the same kind of tragedy from ever happening again. She gets on a cart leading her to Ul'dah, entirely unprepared for how much her world was about to change, but knowing that something had always been dragging her away from a quiet life.

When she first hops in the cart leading, she has to squash down the uneasy feeling that the quiet gives her. Even after the tragedy, she'd still been surrounded by family, always in motion. So she's relieved when she sees the elezen twins at first, but they're so quiet and even her attempts to draw them into conversation fail. It isn't until later when she first hears the name Leveilleur that she begins to understand their quiet. Even in her far off town, they'd heard about Louisoix and all that he'd done to try and save them. Still, it's a relief when she runs into them again later, and even after Alisaie stomps off, she's glad that Alphinaud remains. 

Ages later, being around Alphinaud or Alisaie is easy for the warrior. For all that the twins are the youngest of their merry band of Scions, they're also the ones that the warrior feels the most comfortable with, and she's not sure if it's that they're the closest to her in age or just because of how much they remind her of home.

Either twin has spent lengthy amounts of time with her since those first days, and when one has left, the other typically remains by the warrior's side. After her time in Ishgard with Alphinaud and then later with Alisaie through all of Doma and Ala Mhigo, she begins to take them for granted. Her time on the Source before she's pulled to the First is the first time in a long time she's spent any significant amount of time without either of them, and the moment when Alisaie is left unconscious is the first time the warrior has had a panic attack in years.

She spends the battle with Zenos half-blind to the world, her mind anywhere but on the conflict in front of her, and it nearly costs her her life in the process. If it wasn't for Estinien, she's entirely sure it would've. She's sure the Echo would bring her back, but with every death, she's more afraid that it'll be the last, that this time her soul will go back into the lifestream and it won't come out like her. How long before Hydaelyn wouldn't be able to do so any longer?

When the Crystal Exarch successfully pulls the warrior to the First, everything is still static. She hears brief words, but none of them matter until she understands that the twins are here as well, and that they've been waiting for her, that Alisaie had been furious that the Exarch had brought her so soon after their promise not to part. When he tells her of how long it has been for them, all the warrior can do is be thankful that it hadn't been the other way around. She hates herself for thinking it, but she knows that she wouldn't have thrived as well as the others seem to have. 

For years Thancred, Y'shtola, and Urianger had been here. The warrior's throat tightens at the very thought, her chest becoming empty of breath. She knows it's okay, that the Scions don't really need her as much as she needs them this way, but as soon as the warrior is able, she's off to retrieve her twins.

When Tesleen tells her about how much Alisaie talked about her, a little bit of the warrior relaxes. As much as she needed the twins, she was always afraid that as much as she needed them, they didn't need her the same way. Knowing that Alisaie talked about her to new friends and not just about Scion related things... it helps. It reminds her that maybe at least one of the two of the elezens need her as much as she does them for more than just fighting. She loves Alphinaud as much as she does any of her cousins, but unlike his sister, sometimes the warrior thinks that maybe he forgets she isn't immortal.

Of course, Alisaie doesn't make it easy. The warrior tracks her down, and Alisaie has gotten even stronger, and though it's been a year the look on her face says she's just as glad to see the warrior as the warrior is her. Her heart breaks for Alisaie when Tesleen is killed. She'd only known Tesleen for a few hours, but the death wears away at her still. If only she'd been faster, if only she'd been better, she could've saved her friend the pain. She tries to understand when Alisaie waits at the Crystarium while the warrior tracks down her brother, but inside her, the voices are whispering all over again.

Alphinaud. Always in the thick of whatever political intrigue there is, but they've spent so much time together that it just feels right to jump right into it again with him. They help as many as they can until there's nothing more they can do for now. They return to the Crystarium, and when they head off for Urianger, the warrior feels not quite complete, but whole for the time being with the two of them on her left and right. She's used to being surrounded by the buzz of the Scions, the near-constant recognition on the Source, and while that's not something she feels like she deserves, it's the quiet that was getting to her without them.

Days later, Emet-Selch walks into her life. She should hate him, she knows, but a part of her soul seems to be pulling her closer closer closer to him. He's so arrogant, so angry and utterly furious at her, and yet all she's initially inclined to do is walk up and hug him. Thancred, sadly, seems more murderously inclined. 

Unbelievably, he offers to help them. He offers to find common ground. Moments later, as quickly as he appeared, he disappears into a portal, and the warrior can't understand the sense of loss she suddenly feels. A brief part of her had wanted to leap into the portal right behind him. It feels not unlike when the twins were ripped away from her, but from a different place in her.

He's there again in the ocular, and the warrior has to resist the urge to poke at his eyebrows and tell him to stop frowning so much. All this scheming is going to leave him with very odd frown lines. She can't help but squint and wonder what he'd look like if he were happy. She squashes down the urge to follow him once more when he leaves.

She's forced to go after Y'shtola without the twins, and the warrior suppresses the tinge of panic. Every time one of them leaves her sight, they get into some sort of trouble.

Emet-Selch appears once more when they arrive, speaking of subjugating people and the glory of Garlemald, and while the warrior can see how easy it would be for him to do either of those things, she can't help but feel like it's wrong for him to think that way. Not in an obvious way, that of course, those are terrible things, but that for him to be desiring either of them was not who he was. He was meant to build things and people up as the Architect, not bring about their destruction.

As quickly as the thoughts came, they were gone again. He's told to shut up if he's going to follow them, and the warrior can't help but be always alert of his presence behind her as she walks. It's unsettling but not uncomfortable. Despite his words to Minfilia about refusing to fight, and the fact that he's technically their enemy, she feels safe. Her death would, at the very least inconvenience his current plotting, and at best, fail to amuse him. After twelve thousand years, this has to be all habit for him. Taunt the Hydaelyn's champion, be annoyed when they get in his way, but ultimately continue about his day.

She's oddly disappointed in herself when he tells her that she's boring him. Y'shtola soon arrives and doesn't even recognize the warrior, and she feels the panic reach up once more. Emet-Selch is bored by her. The twins were forced to stay behind. Y'shtola thinks her a stranger. Urianger's keeping secrets. How long before Thancred and Minfilia are disappointed by her as well? Soon enough Y'shtola and Urianger are whispering about how she's not right, and the warrior can't help but think that there's one thing she does, and she's not even doing that right.

She crams the panic into a corner to be dealt with later and tries to ignore that it's getting harder and harder to do so each time she does it. Over here she keeps the Light from the wardens, over there she keeps the panic, and she can't help but notice that soon there won't be any more room for more.

Then Y'shtola dies, and it aches and aches and aches. Yet another person who sacrificed themselves in front of her. Perhaps this is the life she's doomed to live, and if so, she can begin to understand why the Ascian deigns life so. For twelve millennia he has watched people die, the warrior has done it not even a single lifetime, and already she feels ready to distance herself from others. She's been unwilling to get attached to Minfilia, precious though the girl is for that very reason. How long before she would be gone? How long before Minfilia's involvement with her caused the girl irreparable harm or worse?

It's unbelievable when Emet-Selch just offhandedly says he can pull Y'shtola back out of the lifestream. She knows he let himself be caught, knows that, but can't figure out for the life of her why he did so. While he claims that he brought Y'shtola back for the good of their alliance, she knows it's not the full truth. Some part of him had to have wanted to prevent the pointless waste of life when he could do something about it. Beyond the Ascian who strove to return Zodiark above all else, there was a man there who was more than a puppet for the villains she'd been fighting against. She’s not how she knows it, but she just knows he was a good person, maybe, a great person once upon a time.

She's in her room in the Crystarium later when the well finally bursts. Everything she had been shoving down down down spirals up up up, and she sinks to the floor of her room and curls into the smallest ball she can, and that's the last thing she remembers.

There's a soothing caress that the warrior can't quite feel touching her physically, but from somewhere both inside and outside of her at the same time. She's dimly aware that she's been moved to her bed, and she slowly begins to control her breath like the voice whispering in her ear asks her to. One by one, things become tangible again. When she slowly opens her eyes, she's somehow unsurprised to see Emet-Selch on the bed with her. He's not quite touching her, but there are a thousand thoughts in the pale gold eyes staring back at her.

Ardbert is there as well, watching her from the side. The Ascian in the room doesn't seem to be aware of his presence, but the former Warrior of Darkness looks torn between wanting to kill him and wanting to be grateful. When the warrior looks over at him, he grimaces before disappearing with a wave, seemingly content for now in her safety.

"Do you often suffer from debilitating panic attacks?" The Ascian asks her.

"Yes." She says abruptly, it's not what she had intended to say, she's never admitted her panic attacks to anyone, and she's not sure why she immediately tells him the truth.

"And your little band of "friends" don't do anything to help? I knew they were pitiful, but not this pathetic." He spits out, and the warrior is torn between being touched that he almost seems to care and furious in her defense of the Scions.

"They don't know. Usually, I'm good at shoving it away until I'm alone, it's just been... a very long month."

"I may not be the expert on healthy mental wellbeing, warrior, but I don't believe that is what you should be doing." He's pacing the room now, looking a bit frustrated.

"I'm sorry," she says, not entirely sure why.

"Do not apologize to me, hero, apologize to the friends who likely deserve to be told the truth as much as it disturbs me to say so."

"I can't do that." The warrior says. She can't tell them. They deserve more than the broken being that she is.

"I always knew you sundered souls were foolish, but I’d expected a bit more than this stupidity." The Ascian says, glaring down at where she's sitting on the bed. "It has been a long time since I've had anyone I would call a friend, warrior, but even I know that by hiding something such as this does them a disservice and speaks little for how much you think of them. But by all means, continue this self-sabotage you have going, it'll just make my job easier when you all come crumbling down."

"What do you mean I'm doing them a disservice?"

"If they truly are your friends as I've no doubt you would claim them to be, then they will understand. You do not need to tell all of your pesky allies, but you likely trust one or two of them more than the others, do you not?"

Instantly Alphinaud, Alisaie, and Lyse come to mind. While none of them exactly know about her panic attacks, she knows they likely have an inkling about what she is going through. All the Scions are damaged, just a little bit, after all, they've all been through so much in their lives. Lyse would’ve understood the most, but of course she’s back on the Source, defending the homeland she’d so desperately fought to free.

"I can see that I'm right." The Ascian says, before opening a portal. "I'll leave you to sob on their shoulders seeing as I rather prefer not being covered in slobber." He raises a hand to wave himself away.

"Wait. Wha- How?" She asks, leaping out of bed a gripping a corner of his robe.

"I know it is difficult for your pitiful soul to comprehend, but it would be positively dull for you to die because of this. I've rather a vested interest in this whole process," Hades said pulling his robe away from her and looking at it like he'd have to wash it later, "and I'd like to see how it concludes."

"That wasn't-" the warrior began to say, but the Ascian had already walked through the portal. She had a thousand questions, all at the tip of her tongue, and the smirk she'd seen on his face said he knew he wasn't answering the question she was actually going to ask. How had he even known how to soothe her? How had he'd even known he'd needed to?

Ardbert slowly faded back into the room now that the Ascian was gone, looking in the direction he'd left through. "I don't know. I'd tried talking to you, but it didn't seem like you could hear me. As much as I hate agreeing with him, I think he might be right about talking to someone. I know I don't have much room to talk," the ghost said, shrugging, "given that I've spent a hundred years wallowing, but even I will admit that being able to talk to you has helped."

The warrior pulled her knees up, hugging them before asking, "What if they see me differently, after?"

"Then they're not the friends you think they are. I haven't known them very long, but from what I've seen of your friends, I don't think that's true. They all seem rather dedicated to you."

"Alright. But... tomorrow. I think right now, I'd just like to sleep."

"Goodnight then," the warrior of the first said, waving when she replied the same.

"I can't do this. I can't." The warrior was speaking to herself, pacing in front of the door leading to Alphinaud and Alisaie's rooms. While they had separate rooms, they shared living space in between.

The choice was taken out of the warrior's hands when a moment later the door opened on its own, startling the warrior into gripping the weapon at her side.

"I thought I heard someone out here, did you need something?" Alisaie asked, gesturing to the warrior to come in.

"No. I mean, yes." She said, swallowing down what felt like a rock in her throat and entering the room before she lost her courage.

"Is Alphinaud around? I... have something I'd like to talk to both of you about."

"Yes-" Alisaie began, looking at her friend with not a little amount of concern, "Let me get him. Is everything alright?"

"Yes, and no..." she trailed off as Alisaie dragged her protesting twin away from the book he'd been reading in his own room, who promptly stopped at seeing the typically unruffled warrior he knew looking like she was about to bolt.

"Can we sit?" She said, "It's a long story." It was a long while later before the warrior finished telling the twins everything. Judging by the look passing between the two of them, she'd been right that they'd had some ideas, but much of her story was new to them.

"I'm sorry," Alisaie said, the moment she could. "I knew when it was just the two of us left on the Source that something was bothering you, and I should've asked."

"It's ok Alisaie, you couldn't have known."

"No, I could've, and I'll never forgive the Exarch for what he did to you." The fiery elezen replied, looking ready to leap off the couch she was sitting on any moment and give the Crystal Exarch what would likely be another piece of her mind about what he'd done.

"It wasn't on purpose." The warrior replied to her with a smile on her face.

"I'd be remiss if I didn't offer my own apologies as well," Alphinaud began, "with all the time we spent together in Ishgard, I was so focused on myself that I rarely took the time to see how you were doing."

"No, Alphinaud, I didn't come here for this," the warrior said, gesturing at the two of them, both looking like they'd like to continue apologizing for a while yet, "but someone told me that I needed to be able to talk to someone next time before everything gets... bad."

"I'm glad you feel like that you could tell us," Alisaie wasn't quite looking at the warrior as she replied, "and I know I can speak for the both of us when I say that we're here for you, whenever you need us. And I mean it - whenever." She was looking firmly at the warrior now, partially convincing the warrior with a determined look in her eyes alone. That was Alisaie though, ready to tackle any problem in front of her head-on.

Alphinaud took a deep breath before adding, "She's right. And I resolve to try and remember that even though you are the Warrior of Light, at the end of the day, you're just like us. A little insecure, and a lot of learning everything as we go." And that was Alphinaud, ready to analyze the situation and figure out how he could best come at it.

The warrior smiles, finally. Taking in what feels like the first deep breath she'd had in a long time. Things are not fixed, she knows it's not as simple as that, that it'll never be that easy, but knowing she has the twins at her back, she feels better than she has in a long long time.

Of course, things remaining better would be too easy. Emet-Selch explains the history of their world, explaining just how broken all their souls are, that they're 'malformed creatures' and she sees just how even millennia later, the thought of that ending of his home breaks his heart.

The urge to hug him is there once more, but as Y'shtola says, his loss does not condone the actions he has taken in the past, the millions he has killed. Even if they are not truly alive as he says, they are still here now, breathing, thinking, fighting. Just because they are lesser does not mean that they are not worth saving, the warrior thinks, as part of her soul rises up to fight back at him, to have the same fight they've had dozens of times, except... that they hadn't, she realizes. 

It felt so familiar though.

The warrior is still mulling over her reaction when Emet-Selch states that he has the highest expectations for her, that her soul is seven times rejoined, and as much as she'd like to deny what he's implying, it makes sense. All of them are seven times rejoined though, aren't they? All of them but Ryne who is either a single soul or eight times rejoined after Minfilia joined their spirits together. It's enough to make the headache she'd had since the Ascian had begun talking to explode into a full migraine, and she waves off the concerned looks on everyone's faces when she winces.

For the second time, Emet-Selch appears into her room that afternoon. Ardbert, who'd been idly discussing the desert areas with her, leaves as quickly as the Ascian arrives. Thinking back, he seldom appears when the Ascian does, and she makes a mental note to ask him about it later. For now though, there's an Ascian in the room who scarcely seems to know why he is so more than she does.

She settles for a simple 'hello', as she continues to clean her gear, content to ignore the man for the moment. Everything is taking her just a bit longer than it typically did, she can feel the light causing aches and pains in her bones not unlike the ones she already had in her knees from the years of jumping, falling and being crushed by monumentally sized primals.

For a while, they stay like that. Emet-Selch slouched into a chair, watching the warrior complete her mundane tasks of the day to day, and it's sort've peaceful. She can nearly imagine the scene just a bit differently, with Emet-Selch looking through papers at a desk while she putters about around him, watering plants, hanging up robes, and, with a huff the warrior realizes, still cleaning gear. When he lifts his feet to put them on her coffee table, the warrior offhandedly swats them away, reminding him that there will be 'No disgusting feet on my table', and she completely misses the brief look of surprise in his eyes as he reluctantly places them on the floor as the warrior uses a brush to clean between the groves of her own boots.

"Are you just content to ignore me then?" He finally says, patience worn away.

"I assumed that if you wanted something, you would've said so. It hasn't stopped you before now." She says, looking up at him with a smirk.

"Well, you seem to be less miserable than the last time I was here. Given the four light wardens you contain, I must confess I expected more agony." He replies, infusing as much snark into his sentence as possible.

The warrior rolled her eyes at him in response, but responds to his unasked question regardless, "Yes, I talked to my friends. You were right, it helped."

"Naturally, warrior. I can tell nothing but the truth after all."

"Can you really?" She asked, suddenly fascinated. Abruptly deciding that she was done cleaning, the warrior began to put everything away. 

He had explained that he had only been telling them the truth before, but the warrior had assumed the was just because it was in his best interest for them to believe the things he was saying. It had quite changed the narrative of the Ascian's after all. They'd gone from villains to somewhat sympathetic creatures. They were the heroes in their stories, just as the warrior was in her own.

"Yes. Tis the burden all who have borne the title of Emet-Selch. Just as Halmarut can not resist settling a debate, and Mitron doomed to be the eternal nagger."

"So Lahabrea, Elidibus, those are all titles as well?"

"Yes. Though we all have borne the titles so long they may as well be our names."

A knock on the door comes before the warrior can continue the conversation, Thancred explaining that they're going out for supplies before they inevitably leave again. The warrior demures, saying she wanted to get some more sleep. Bidding him goodbye, she's disappointed to find that while she hadn't been looking, the Ascian had disappeared.

Much to her surprise, a moment later he reappears from the portal, ignoring her questioning look. The warrior shrugged and settled down her comfiest chair, groaning when she realized she’d left her drink on the table. A moment of consideration crosses Emet-Selch’s face before with a snap of his fingers it reappeared on the table next to her.

“Thank you?” She says. Emet-Selch laughs, and it takes the warrior a moment to realize that they never really had said thank-you to him for saving Y’shtola. “For that too, you know.”

“I would say ‘anytime’, but it would be a lie.” Emet-Selch crossed the room before looking down at the rather sad chair that remained. He gives it a brief look of disdain before with a snap of his fingers and it turns into the mirror of her own chair.

“What happens if you try to lie?” she finally asks, at length.

Emet-Selch looked at her with half-lidded eyes. He seemed to be nearly half-asleep, and part of her wonders if he would’ve slept, right there in her rooms if she hadn’t interrupted him.

“I simply cannot. Were I to attempt the feat, I’d merely tell the truth instead.”

“Something tells me you’ve gotten quite good at managing to bend that rule.” The look Emet-Selch sends her in response is practically devious, and she can’t resist the urge to laugh a little, even as it causes a burst of agony to shoot through her. Emet-Selch must’ve noticed it as a moment later he’s making an excuse to leave, muttering about how sundered souls like hers were weak with their need for so much sleep. When the warrior pointed out that it seemed far more likely that he was the laziest person she knew in response, he merely waved a hand in response before walking through his portal.

Later, while she waits at the elevator in Kholusia and he speaks of crushing people once more, she makes sense of why she had such a hard time picturing him at the head of those imperial nations. It's because of the moments he describes after of bringing balance between the oppressors and the oppressed. Those moments, yes, she can see him strategizing. How much to push here, when to pull back over there, creating perfect balances like so much of a scale. Those are the moments she can see him excelling at, and she's surprised by him once more when he compliments on her ability to do the same.

He's foolish when he thinks that she believes him incapable of love. It's clear whenever he talks that he does what he does because he believes it's the only way to bring back the city he clearly loved so much. Once more he implies that she should remember such a place, but when she presses him on it, he lets the subject go, before reminding her that she only stands to gain from what he does. Taunting her about the Exarch, he walks away as quickly as he'd appeared earlier, not bothering to talk to anyone else.

And then she's failed. She absorbs the Sin-Eater in Kholusia and everything begins to fall apart, she can't contain the light, it's pressing out out out out out out out on her it wants to change her and she's desperately trying to keep it in and she wants to break apart, but she can still feel the lie when he says he would've killed them all after regardless. He probably believes it, thinks that he would've, but it's the same feeling she's had all along telling her that there's more to him. He's challenging her now, she can feel the words underneath his words even as she can barely see, barely hear, she feels the words he's really saying to her. 'Prove me wrong. Contain the light.'

He could easily have taken Ryne with him when he leaves, but he doesn't, and she knows its all the gift he's willing to give her at the moment, but that his words a moment later are the only truth he will tell her right now - that if she can not contain this, she will kill her friends, and that there is no coming back from that for her even if it wasn't for the part where she'd be a sin eater. Ryne stabilizes her as much as she can for now, but she can still feel all the light trying to fill in the empty gaps of her, where the rest of her soul should be.

Despite his words, he's there at the Crystarium again later. Ardbert, as usual, was nowhere to be seen while the Ascian was around. The warrior cursed herself for forgetting to ask him about it.

"One of these days, you're going to need to knock, you know." She breathlessly says, walking out of her bathing room, fortunately fully dressed. She's moving slowly, half-blind from the aether poisoning her body.

The Ascian merely raises an eyebrow at her statement, as if saying he'd considered the idea, but decided it wasn't worth it.

"This is pathetic, warrior. When are you going to accept the ending we both know you'll inevitably reach?"

The warrior shakes her head, inch by inch working her way over to the nearest chair. Ryne had helped, but she's still exhausted from the day. "Never. I'll fight as long until I collapse."

"I think you're rather close to the moment already." He says with a frown, looking at how uncomfortably she's sitting there. He tsks, before lifting her up and depositing her on the bed. Neither of them comments on the action, pretending the moment of kindness hadn't happened, much as they had all the moments that had come before it.

"I had nearly expected to find you fighting fit, with how often you seem to enjoy defying my expectations of you. As it is now, I'm not sure you'll even make it to my home before breaking."

"I will-" The warrior swallowed down the light pooling in the back of her throat, "be just fine in the morning. In case you've forgotten, aside from consuming the aether, I did have to fight Vauthry."

"Hmm," he says in reply, looking the warrior over. A moment later, she feels that same everywhere and nowhere hug that she'd felt at his first visit, and things seem to shift within her to a bit more to tolerable from 'just barely maintaining'.

The warrior's eyes flash open from where they'd been half-lidded, glaring at him in shock.

"You just did something, didn't you?" Nothing feels wrong, but the sensation seems to be checking her over, and the hair on the back of the warrior's neck stands on end. For all that she'd been clothed when she'd walked out of the bathroom, she feels like she may as well have been naked now.

"Mayhap."

She continues to stare at him, but the man doesn't seem inclined to continue.

"Oh very well, at least if you kill me now it'll save me the time from making the trip to wherever you live."

"None of that now warrior," he says, giving her a disappointed look. "I am rather certain that you'd like to avoid the rampant loss of life that a light warden appearing in the center of the largest city remaining on Norvrant. If I'd simply wanted to kill you, I would've done it back in Eulmore when I could practically have pushed you over and finished the deed."

"No, but you did kidnap the Exarch."

"He was interfering in my plans. Was I supposed just to let him do it? Is that what you typically do when the other Ascians bumble their way into your path?"

"No. No, of course not." She's looking away, and it's the refusal to make eye contact that seems to get to him eventually.

"He's fine. Maybe not pleased, but I have not harmed any additional hairs on your Exarch's head." He spits it out, and the warrior can't tell if it's jealousy she hears in his voice, or if it's just wishful thinking.

"He's not my anything. Friend, maybe, I suppose." Emet-Selch merely waves her response off, in what is likely supposed to show that he doesn't care, but somehow manages to look like he's ignoring the whole thing instead.

"Thank you." She says, when it becomes inevitable that she'll fall asleep in a matter of moments.

"Do not thank me just yet, warrior." He says, just glancing into a corner of the room as he summoned a portal, stepping through with a call of "Until next time then."

"He restored some of your natural aether with his own," Ardbert says, looking down at her. "But I don't know why he would bother. You would've been mostly fine by morning anyway, from what I can tell."

The warrior can't help but think that the architect would've known that.

When Ardbert's soul fuses with her own, it's like a window that had been long shut flies open. Emet-Selch is defeated, and he disappears asking her to remember them, and the thing is, she does. The force of the Echo drives her to her knees, and instead of the usual short moment, it's thousands of them. She's not sure how long she's there lying on the floor, but by the time she's conscious the Scions have dragged her back to the Crystarium. 

When she wakes up, it feels a bit like her head is stuffed to the brim, and she can barely open her eyes for the force of the migraine that threatens to overtake her. A healer blissfully releases her back into sleep.

The next time she opens her eyes, it's easier, but she can still feel centuries of memories crammed in and around her own. It's impossible to keep track of what was her memories now and what was her memories of her past initially. The sheer force of her will and some carefully practiced meditation has her beginning to sort through everything. It's still nearly a week before she's able to even begin considering talking to Urianger, who had been quietly attending to her the entire time.

She doesn't remember everything, there are still doors closed where she knows the other five pieces of her soul hold the keys, but she remembers there being a city of life, of century after century of peace, and the man, that once upon a time, she'd been married to. The memories are endless, seemingly blending her lives together, and it leaves the warrior uncertain of just who she was now. Was she the girl who'd grown up in the village with dozens of family members all around, or was she the Amaurotine Ancient, who'd needed centuries to grow before even being considered an adolescent? Her entire life on the Source was a blip compared to her life previously, but they felt equally important to her.

How was she supposed to explain everything to the Scions? Thancred would never understand, he hated Ascians with a passion, and the warrior couldn't really blame him for that, but would that include her now? The thoughts spent her spiraling, but the warrior was relieved to realize that no panic attack threatened to overtake her, and after a moment she was able to ask Urianger if he wouldn't mind fetching the twins.

She shouldn't have been surprised when they burst through the door before he'd even stood, and she laughed at the disappointed look Urianger sent toward their sheepish faces as he left the room, saying he'd fetch her some tea and sandwiches now that she finally seemed to be awake for a longer period of time.

"I need to tell you something." She says quietly. 

Alisaie and Alphinaud glance between each other momentarily before Alisaie replies, "You know you can tell us anything."

"Even if that something is that I'm an Ancient who caused the world to split into fourteen pieces while summoning Hydaelyn, willingly sacrificing the souls of thousands of Ancient beings in order to stop Zodiark?"

"Yes." Alisaie said simply, whacking her brother in the chest at his stupefied "What?" before he composed himself. Shaking his head and sending a glare over to his sister, "Of course. While I may have a thousand questions - Now- Alisaie!" He said, dodging the second elbow she'd been sending his way, "It would take far more than being told you're..."

"Ancient," Alisaie added with a smirk, making it clear she was calling the warrior old, who rolled her eyes and smiled back at her as Alphinaud continued, "to drive us away. After all the time we've spent together,"

"Which really, is nothing for you now come to think of it." Alisaie continued, speaking over her brother. "I'd hope you know that by now." Alphinaud finished, continuing to glare at his sister before looking back to the warrior with a smile.

"I know. This just... isn't going to be easy. It's long, and it hurts and you're going to hear some things that won't be as simple as the black and white we've been able to fight with until now. But do you think you could gather everyone? I'm only going to be able to do this once."

"Of course!" Alphinaud said, bounding off to round up the remaining Scions. A short time later found them all sitting at the table in the warrior's room. She's bracketed on either side by the twins, and trying to avoid looking overlong at Thancred who she knows will take this the worst.

"Thy doth have a story to tell?" Urianger asked, breaking the silence that had slowly been overtaking the room. The warrior gave him a small smile before catching them up to where she'd left off with Alphinaud and Alisaie. She can tell that Y'shtola and Urianger are itching to ask more about how she'd summoned Hydaelyn and promises to go more in depth about it with them at a later point.

The warrior took a deep breath, looking Thancred in the eyes before continuing again, "What if I told you that Lahabrea used to be one of my closest friends? That Elidibus is -was- practically family? ThatI'mmarriedtoEmet-Selch." She releases a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding when the gunbreaker looks torn between walking out of the room and staying before he ultimately stays. The worst part of remembering, was that not only did she need to find a way to tell the Scions, but that she missed the people the Ascians had been. 

She tells them how frustrating it was now to know she was missing memories, how there were things she knew she was supposed to know, but couldn't. 

She spends hours telling them that Lahabrea was gone, probably forever, and that it broke her heart that she would never get a chance to free him from his tempering. That the shade they'd fought wasn't the man she'd spent centuries studying with. She begs forgiveness from Thancred when she explains that wasn't the person she'd copied notes from, pestered with created birds, talked to about how stressful it was being on the convocation with, but much she loved being on it with too. She talked about how much she missed her best friend and how nobody would understand that when he was also your mortal enemy responsible for murdering millions.

And Hades. Hades. HadesHadesHadesHadesHades. His name was written on her very soul. She told them how she had just part of the bond created between souls when Ancient's married. How there were pieces of her soul out there somewhere that she knew had to feel desperate to find him, even without knowing what they were looking for. That the man you all had just rallied to kill? He was her soulmate and she can't even describe how very much she wished he was here right now, even so he could just tell her to stop whining, she was supposed to be the "strong" one, remember? But how then he'd cuddle with her on the couch and the two of you would just read books together until she felt she could face the world again. She tells them that even with her broken soul how she'd been drawn to Emet-Selch and how despite his tempering, despite not being able to see who she was through the Light he'd been drawn to her in return.

Emet-Selch made her relive those final days when she had been desperate to find another answer, to find a way to prevent the constant sacrifice that Zodiark had wanted from them. She was lucky that she hadn't been able to remember at the time, because now that she could remember what it felt like to have to rip something akin to an arm off to break part of their bond just to walk away from him. How she was lucky that she was still so divided so she couldn't feel the constant screaming pain it would've brought. She remembered how wrong it had felt to be bonded to him when he'd been tempered by Zodiark, the pure feeling of love that had been between them turned to ash and oil but how it paled in comparison to when she'd had to separate from him in order to summon Hydaelyn.

She'd spent the first month after alternating between throwing up and sobbing, while Zodiark's tempering had spared him from the same.

It's also how she knows that he tricked them. Their bond is broken, bleeding and weak, but she knows he's alive, that he'd been weak and healing just as she had been. Like a compass, the piece of her soul that he holds points her toward Amaurot, constantly directing her to him just as she knew it was doing for him.

She talks for bells and bells until Ryne nearing falling asleep at the table convinces her that that's enough, for now. Ryne blushes and protests that just because she's falling asleep doesn't mean the warrior has to stop, but she's told them enough, for now. Looking around the room, she can see that she's left the group with a lot to take in, and she sheepishly excuses herself with pleas of being exhausted on her own. When Y'shtola takes pity on her and agrees even though the warrior knows she can tell she's fine, it gives her hope that maybe trusting the rest of the Scions with her history was the right choice.

She lets everyone believe that she's returned to the Source, and she does, for a few weeks. She checks in with Tataru, stashes some items from the First with her retainers, and lets herself be seen in Limsa Lominsa after Tataru mentions that the people had been wondering where all the Scions are. She's intentionally casual, almost lazing around as she gathers some items she'd been missing while on the First, picking up books Urianger had requested, coffee for Thancred, treats for each of her friends. 

She spends a little more time looking around for things for the twins, before finally settling on a new rapier for Alisaie and getting a lengthy list of news for Alphinaud, who'd been near chomping at the bit for updates on each country. She makes sure to teleport over to see Lyse and Hien, assuring them both that she's fine, making sure that Lyse knows from her personally that while the rest of the Scions haven't returned just yet, they will be eventually. She’s desperate to tell Lyse everything, but she knows it’s not time yet, if ever. Though she still trusts Lyse with her life, she belonged to a different world now.

Most importantly, she spends time with her family. She spends days with cousins nearly crawling all over her, asking for her newest stories, assuring her aunts and uncles that she's doing alright. She rarely has time to see everyone, and she gets a few days to relax and recharge alongside them. 

She ignores the shoebill that has been following her around the entire time. She'd noticed it on the First, but hadn't thought much about it at first. It'd pointed her to the Exarch in Kholusia once, and then she'd seen it once, impossibly, on the ocean floor. Now, with the window open in her soul and the light aether gone, it was ridiculously easy to notice the spot of the Architect's aether on the bird. She wasn't sure if it was so easy to tell because her soul was now more complete, or if it was because of it being his aether that she was able to tell, as no other aether was as easily recognizable as his was to her.

Eventually, after days of trying to focus on the soul of her cousins, she’s able to spot the faintest bit of their aether, but only when she turned her head just so and looked at it from the corner of her eye without trying to focus too much. Proud of her new ability, the warrior finally pries her cousins off her legs before spending an hour or two trying to say goodbye to everyone and then is teleporting back to Mor Dhona, heading back to the crystal tower immediately.

She'd realized pretty quickly after initial time the Exarch had pulled her between worlds that she was able to teleport back to the Crystarium from the Source on her own if she focused and was within the Crystal Tower. Now it seemed, as she tethered the bit of aether she needed to teleport, that she could return to anywhere in the First as long as she'd bound herself to the nearest Aetheryte. A deep breath later, and she was in Amaurot once more.

The city was exactly as it had been the day they'd fought, and if the warrior hadn't already been confident that the Ascian had tricked them before, she was positive of it now. If the Architect had perished during their fight, the city would have begun to fade already, but here it was, just as empty and beautiful as ever. She lets her feet take her where they want to go without thinking about it overmuch, and she eventually finds herself in front of a building covered in vines and flowers. 

It wasn't as tall as the buildings surrounding it, but it was painstakingly detailed. Every touch of the building seemed to have a flourish; every window adorned with painted glass depicting gardens filled with life. The vines, which typically would damage a structure were attached to a lattice that was nearly invisible to the eye, and every bit of the building seemed to have been built as a balance between nature and stone.

"Will you tell me about it?" She'd asks seemingly no-one. She knew he had to have noticed her from the moment she'd entered the city. Hell, he'd likely known where she was at every moment since the moment he'd been freed from being tempered, even if he hadn’t been spying on her. She couldn't imagine the agony he must've gone through, and it killed a part of her to know that he had to do it alone. That she’d left him to do it alone.

There's a brief pause before Emet-Selch appears. "You still do not recall the city, Warrior? All that effort, gone to waste then." He's looking around at the city he's spent a millennium recreating from his memory alone as he seems suddenly ready to snap his fingers and erase it all.

"No. Not yet, at least." The warrior replied, "It feels a bit more like I should, like I'm constantly feeling deja vu, but if you asked me how to get to the Akadaemia Anyder from here, aside from the name, I can't even tell you what that is. It's honestly infuriating. I can tell you about the thousands of hours I spent there, but not how to get there." She's scowling at the building in front of her when she continues.

"I am, afterall, still incomplete. Still sundered. I'm just a little more complete than I was the last time we spoke." It frustrates her that she can't remember these things, they're all there, right on the tip, but every time she reaches for a memory, it slips away.

The frustration must show on her face, since the man next to her adds, "My apologies, Dear Warrior, I had not meant to offend. Yes, if you still desire it, I will answer your questions." The warrior walked through the city streets, aimlessly letting her feet carry her from one location to another. Emet-Selch would idly tell her about the history of the various building they passed between, each one seemingly more beautiful than the last.Some, she remembers, some she does not. After what had to be hours walking through the gigantic city she found herself back in front of the same vine-covered building.

"Home. This is the place we had called home before everything that happened." They both ignored the we in the statement for now, neither one commenting on the thing they both knew about who she was, and she focused on the building instead. It was easy to see the Architect's particular touch on the building. Perfectly symmetrical in design, and mostly uniform as the Ancients had preferred it, but it stood out nonetheless even without the large windows and purple trees decorating the front. 

The warrior pushed through the massive doors leading into the building and couldn't help the gasp that escaped her. A thousand, thousand moments her soul had spent within these walls, and she'd been so happy here. She walked from the entry room into another room.

"It's beautiful. You designed this one entirely?" They were clearly in the living room of their home. In front of her was the couch where Hades had been made to sleep on a thousand times. To her right was the kitchen, and the warrior had the recollection of the man following her from room to room like a lost puppy of him of cooking her a thousand different meals. She was always hopeless at cooking, but she'd loved coming home with an entirely random assortment of foods just to see what he could come up with.

Over there was where she'd fallen asleep countless nights, creating and adjusting the natural fauna, before balling up her plans and throwing them at the wall. She had never been a particular fan of editing the natural plant life surrounding Amaurot, preferring to naturally nurture the plants into changing rather than 'cheating' like she had accused other botanists of so many times. Halmarut and herself had spent days alternating between cooing over plant life and arguing about the pros and cons of manipulating an environment. Botany had been her hobby, something to relax with after a day of training with Pashtarot or Fandaniel. 

"Yes." He finally said, seemingly have momentarily tired of watching her flit from item to item. "It was a tradition for the Emet-Selch to raise a new building when they took over the title, but I had help with this one." The architect waved to the surplus of greenery throughout the entire building.

"She made our home her lab as often as not. There's a good chance you'll find fauna here that you could only find on one or two of the remaining shards. Do take caution though - the one you're standing near releases toxins when... nevermind." Emet-Selch said, watching as the plant practically fawned under the warrior's eye. Practically a guard-dog, the plant would poison any it sensed as a threat, but for its creator it had always bent its head for a pet, wrapping wines around her ankles.

"This was my favorite, wasn't it?" The warrior asked, straining at the edges of her memory. There were holes where the creation was, but she had the faint sense of pride and... laughter, maybe about it?

"Yes. It also positively hates me." He replied, taking a step back when the plant snapped a vine in his direction. The warrior had reached over to scratch the plant under the "chin." At least, she thought the large part she was petting was its head.

"It was her favorite. She designed it after some fight we'd had about if she could design a plant that would improve the air quality in a particular area. She kept insisting that she could work with the existing life in the area, and I kept pushing back against how long that would take. She stomped off and came back a day later with that plant in hand, saying that if she was going to create a new plant life, it'd be for a better purpose. At that point, I didn't care what she was planting if it meant she'd talk to me again." He was smiling softly at the recollection, staring toward the door like someone might walk back in any minute now if he just waited long enough.

She couldn't help the laugh that escaped her. "Serves you right. Does this one grow on any of the other shards?" The fauna on the First had been different from that which grew on the Source, and it was likely that the other shards of the world had a plethora of plants she'd never even seen.

"Just here, I'm afraid. Despite being her favored creation and the delight of many, it was far too volatile to be approved for further blueprinting."

"...Is it even really here?" The warrior asked, gesturing to the city she could see through the windows around them. He had Created nearly everything with his aether, and it was near impossible to tell what was and wasn't real.

The Ascian paused, looking anywhere but at the warrior. "No. It's gone, like everything else."

"For what it's worth, and I know it isn't worth much, I am sorry for what happened to our people, Emet-Selch. If we could find a way to bring back the people we lost without the massive loss of life, I'd do it in a heartbeat, you have to know that."

"Sorry does not bring back the millions of souls, Warrior." He snapped back at her before walking away. The response left her momentarily wary. She wasn't quite sure how much it would take to rock the temporary truce they had going on between them currently, or how much it would take to drive him away entirely.

"My training room." She said, stepping through something that seemed to scan her as she entered. It seemed like a safe enough topic to swap to, as far as she could tell he enjoyed telling her about the city. How long had it been since he'd been able to just be an Architect building for the sake of building, rather than to destroy?

"Yes. She was a warrior as much as she was a botanist. She'd spend hours doing paperwork that she hated before nearly screaming and coming in here to beat up one training dummy or another."

"Was that how you knew, about me, I mean?" she asked, thinking back of all the time the Ascian had spent watching her fight.

"I never knew, not really, not until that last fight." He says with a grimace, briefly rubbing his hand over his chest where Ardbert's axe had struck him. "For a brief moment at the end, I could see you, whole, complete, and that's when I knew that sundered as you might be of who you had once been. Before that, no, all I'd been able to determine was that you were clearly one of the Ancient citizens sundered at the end."

"Hythlodaeus knew, I think."

"I don't know how that would be possible given that he's been dead since the sundering." He snipped back at her. Hythlodaeus had been a friend to them both, but he'd been closer to Hades than he had her, which is why it had to have been another knife in the wound when he'd chosen to help summon Hydaelyn instead of giving himself to Zodiark.

The warrior let the comment go for a moment, idly looking through the items in the room. "You didn't know, did you? When you created the shade of him, I met him last time we came here. He said that when you were thinking of him you must've gotten distracted? Something about how you knew he'd know that he wasn't really here. Anyway, he called me his 'new old friend' when he said goodbye. It was the latest in a long string of moments that had me wondering about my past."

"Odd." Emet-Selch was watching the warrior as she picked up a weapon and briefly considered it. When she raised an eyebrow at him he gave her a brief look of 'very well'. With a grin she began experimenting with it against the various training dummies in the room, letting out a small whoop as one was nearly beheaded in one hit before it instantly reappeared, unharmed.

The room was positively filled with nearly every weapon she'd ever toyed with, and quite a few she hadn't gotten around to trying yet. She'd clearly been as inconsistent in the past as the warrior herself was, changing weapons and skills with the drop of a hat. She supposed to with centuries to learn, it was nothing to be an old hand at many different weapon styles. It was likely was it was so easy for her to swap between them now.

"What made me different?" She asked as she continued to work her way through the pile of weapons on the weapon rack. They'd each felt right, the way a soul bonded weapon did that she'd spent enough time wielding. She supposed that having once been the wielder of these weapons, it was entirely possible they were already soul bonded to her.

"At first, nothing. I was curious, I suppose, about the warrior that had defeated so many of my former brethren," The warrior's heart momentarily leapt at the word "former." They'd both been avoiding the mammoth in the room in regards to where his loyalties laid, "so I tracked you down in Il Mheg. It was quite amusing to watch as they tried to drown you at the bottom of their lake until you simply started breathing the water and swam to shore."

The warrior sent him a smug look, before returning to her wanton destruction of training dummies. She'd have to see if she could convince him to let her 'borrow' a few of the weapons, later. She was positively itching to spar with them. "A product of my time in Doma. I can't drown."

"It was after that when I began to notice your soul. I tried to ignore it for the longest time, but your soul is so much brighter than most, it just kept drawing my attention."

"Because I'm Hydaelyn's Champion?" The warrior guessed.

"That, and because it has always been as such. Your soul has ever been the brightest, most endless blue, like the perfect summer day."

"Yours is... dark? But... not entirely. There's a bit of blue in it? And it's more purple than black?"

"What are you doing, warrior?" Emet-Selch asked, watching as the warrior tried looking at him without actually looking at him.

"It's the only way I can see well enough. Otherwise, you're all blurry, and everyone else is impossible."

The Ascian sighed, looking for all the world like a parent who was disappointed in their child. "Stop trying to look at it with your eyes; feel it instead."

The warrior closed her eyes and considered his words for a moment, before flashing back to the moment when he'd first come to her room at the Crystarium. She'd felt him then, when all her other senses had were blocked, so she did the same, ignoring all her other sensations. She gasped when suddenly everything lit up, and she could briefly see the outline of everything in the room, traced in Hades' aether. The effect was lost when she opened her eyes, looking at him in wonder.

"Look at that, apparently old dogs can be taught new tricks."

"You're different." She said in reply, looking at him again. "The last time I did this, it was brief, but I don't remember the blue. And there was a lot more black?" She asked, squinting at him as if she'd suddenly spot a third arm or missing leg to explain the difference.

"Stop it; it's disturbing the way your eyes look like that." The Ascian breathed a long sigh, gesturing for her to follow him as he went back into the living room and sat on the couch. The warrior sat in a chair that seemed to be calling to her, for once noticing the brief smile on his face as she did so. It took a moment before she remembered that this chair had always been hers, that she'd spent hours creating and recreating the chair until it had just the right amount of support for her in as many positions as possible.

"To answer your question, I look different because I am different. Whatever your white auracite did, it removed the grip of Zodiark's tempering upon my soul. Since then, my aether has been slowly purging the rest from my system."

"What about the black, what's that?"

"Zodiark. When you killed me you broke the tempering between my soul and Zodiark, it did not remove the eons of aether my soul had been steeped in from all the time in his presence."

"Right. Of course. That was a dumb question. I'm sorry about that, though. Emet-Selch, I-"

"Hades." He said in response. "If I'm going to be bonded to you, you might as well use my name. At least while we're not with your "friends." He stretched the word out as long as possible, making it clear just what he thought about the other Scions, even now.

"Hades. I'm sorry? You were trying to kill me at the time though."

"To be fair," Hades began, "I didn't have full control over my actions at the time, but I can see why that would bother you."

"And now?" The warrior asked. She wasn't actually sure if she wanted the answer to that question, until he asked, she could keep pretending that things had changed.

"I don't know." He said. "To continue as I was is not an option, but I can not say that I don't still wish for the planet to be whole again."

"There has to be another way."

"Do you think we didn't look at first? To try and peacefully rejoin a soul?"

"There has to be a way. Just look at Ryne and Minfilia! They agreed to rejoin on their own, just as Ardbert did with me."

"And you think all souls would make the same choice? To sacrifice themselves to another when it wasn't for the greater good like both your soul and your friends did?"

"I don't know, but it's better than continuing to commit genocide!"

Hades was silent at her response. "Very well. While I do not think that this half-baked plan of yours is the answer, I also have nothing to lose. I will not go back to Zodiark's tempering, and I can not continue to allow you to flail around as you've been doing blindly."

"Gee, thanks. A month ago you were trying to kill me, so that's definitely reassuring."

"I don't know what you want me to say, Warrior."

"I want you to give me a real reason why I should believe anything you're saying."

There was a long pause as Hades seemed to consider the words he said next. "Because your soul is still the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and I can not bear to harm it. Because I have spent the last twelve millennia swearing that if I ever got the chance, I would spend the next twelve millennia apologizing to my wife for not believing in her. She warned us all that what we were doing was a mistake and I didn't listen. She was my wife, warrior."

It was finally enough for the warrior. ‘She’ this and ‘her’ that, like who she was before and who she is now was different. "I am her, you know. We're not two separate beings, Hades. I might not have all my memories, but I have enough. You might not consider us to be the same being because I'm "broken and not even whole enough to consider it being murder if you kill me," she spat at him, "but this is who I am now. For god's sake Hades, just look around the room if you don't believe me!"

The room had exploded into a thousand colors. More flowers than the warrior knew the names of blooming along the walls in colors she wasn't even sure still existed. This is what their home looked like together. When she left the convocation, had left Hades, it faded into what the room looked like when she'd entered. But this was how the room was supposed to look. Every day she had added a new flower somewhere, and she had expected Hades to be able to find it. It was her gift to him, a reminder of her love. When she'd torn her soul from his and his from hers, the flowers had gone too.

After another moment or two, the room faded back to what it was before. Still beautiful, but clear now that it was missing part of the life it had before.

"You missed one." Hades said, pointing to the flower that was stubbornly growing from a pot in the corner. It was the only flower remaining in the room, and it seemed determined to live. It was purple that abruptly swapped to a near-solid black at the tips and bursting from the yellow stigma.

The warrior whirled to see what Hades was pointing at before she doubled over laughing.

"It's a pansy," she laughed. Of all the flowers that had remained, it was the one the warrior always created when she was mad at Hades, but stubbornly still created every morning.

"So it is." Hades said, still watching the flower. The warrior ached to have the easy ability to read his soul as she once had been able to do, what she wouldn't give to be able to tell what was going through his mind.

"I think you know why it's there. Now, as delightful as this has been," the warrior let out the massive yawn that she'd been trying to keep down until now, "I need to get some sleep. Traveling from the Source seems to leave me half exhausted and then we spent all day traipsing through the city."

Hades stood, gesturing at her to follow him. Leading her down a hallway, he explained, "It's aether exhaustion. It happens because you're spending part of your reserve of aether to do the teleporting. Typically on the Source, it feels like you have a deep well of Aether, and in comparison to others, you do. However, you use exponentially more aether to travel between worlds. It's not something I'd recommend often doing as you're liable to burn yourself out. It'll take a few days to wear off, and until then I wouldn't recommend doing much more."

"Well, that's definitely not something I wanted to hear when in my questionably morally ambiguous husband's home." The warrior replied, missing the flash of pain on Hades' face as she looked into the room he was showing her.

"If you wish to stay, this room is yours." It was a simple if beautiful room. Decorated entirely in blues and purples, the warrior couldn't help but love it. Hints of silver and gold broke up the colors giving the room an elegant but soothing feel. It wasn't a massive as her room in the Crystarium was, or as small as the spare room she owned in her free company, but it suited her just the same.

"I might as well." The warrior said, enjoying the look of surprise on the Ascian's face.

"I was expected much more of a fight than that. It's been my experience that you typically don't give in that easily."

"Hades, you entered my room a handful of times even when you were tempered, and never once did you harm me then. If you didn't kill me while I was sleeping when you were my enemy, I doubt you would now that we're... whatever we are."

Emet-Selch gave a small sigh, before bowing to her, "On my word as Emet-Selch, I will not harm nor allow others to harm you while in my home."

"I suppose I shall trust that then, burdened by telling the truth as you are. Good night then."

"Good night, warrior."

The warrior shut the door behind her, before turning to stare at it for awhile. It had been easy today, perhaps too easy in the end. There were a thousand things going through her mind. How had he really survived their attack on him? He'd mentioned something about having her aether, but that was too simple of an answer by half. His soul seemed to be freeing from Zodiark's tempering, but was that really all it took to change his mind? What would it even mean to have him on their side going forward? Would the other Scions also accept that he had changed?

"I can practically hear you thinking warrior, even from outside the room. Go to bed." She heard the man say loudly from the hallway. With a laugh, the warrior bid to follow his instructions. Climbing into the large bed, she fell asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

A long while later, the Architect walked through a portal into the room, shaking his head when he saw that she hadn't even bothered to take off her armor or get under the covers. As quietly as possible, he snapped his fingers, placing the warrior into soft sleep clothes, putting her helmet and armor on a stand nearby, and tucking her under the covers.

He stayed by her side for a while, slouching into the nearby chair, content for a time just to watch her sleep. Periodically her soul would grow restless, likely a result of bad dreams, and Hades would reach out with his own aether and soothe her as he had the first time he'd entered her rooms. Her soul was a needy thing, Hades realized. It was desperately reaching out for its other parts, constantly searching for completion. 

It was likely a large part of the reason why the warrior suffered from panic attacks such as she did. Being near his soul seemed to calm it down a bit, possibly due to the bond they still shared. He reluctantly accepted that her soul seemed to have latched onto the others in her merry band of do-gooders as well, though the attachment differed from the one to his own. With her friends, it would be a bit like starving and receiving only water. It would allow her to survive for a bit longer, but eventually, she'd succumb to the hunger. In comparison, his soul seemed to provide a snack, leaving her soothed, but eventually even that would not be enough.

He'd be able to distract it, for a time, when it began to thirst for more again. The hero was closer to being complete than when he'd first met her, her soul joined with the fragment that had been drifting on the First, and it seemed to be mostly satisfied for now. It was possible that the warrior was inadvertently correct, the wayward pieces of her soul might willingly rejoin in the end, if only for the peace they received upon reuniting together.

He'd have to look into it further the next time they were on the Source. He had no intention of letting the warrior continue to suffer if he could help, and while he had told her he'd stop rejoining the worlds, he'd made no such promise about encouraging a few necessary deaths.

When the warrior woke up in what she could best guess was the morning in the eternal night that was The Tempest, it was to the smell of cinnamon and syrup. 

Yawning, the warrior abruptly realized she'd been changed while she slept, and was left torn between feeling embarrassed, upset, and grateful. Settling on grateful, she wandered over to the armoire nearby, pulling out a set a pants and a shirt that looked like they'd fit. A few minutes later she was shuffling toward the kitchen, still mostly asleep.

There, in the middle of the kitchen, was Emet-Selch cooking... french toast? For a brief moment all the could do was stare at him and blink.

"See something you like, warrior?" He asked, wiggling those expressive eyebrows of his. It was the first time he'd really acted like himself with her since she'd arrived yesterday, and the warrior tried to ignore the way her heart leapt in her chest at the moment.

The warrior sent him a smug grin, "Well, the french toast looks pretty good I suppose." The truth was, the man looked pretty good too. For once he was out of his garlean clothes, clad in a dark purple shirt and black pants. Not that he needed to know that, but from the look on his face, he must've guessed at her thoughts.

"You're wearing her clothes, you know." He said looking over at her. His voice was mostly monotone, and she couldn't quite tell from the pitch of his voice how he felt about it.

"They are my clothes, but I'm sorry. I can go change into my armor if you would prefer I didn't."

"It's fine. What's mine is yours. You have a point that they are technically your clothes as well."

"Alright then, I'll take everything in the training room."

"Hah!" Hades replied in a laugh. 'Good', she thought, she'd managed to surprise him for once.

The warrior reached for a heaping stack of the cinnamon delight, when the memory of how many times he'd done this for his her flashed through her mind.

"Meh favowite!" The warrior asked, mouth full with nearly half a piece. They were perfect. The bread was thick, they were cinnamon-y, vanilla-y and just... perfect.

The architect shook his head at her terrible table manners before replying, "Yes, I'd hazarded a guess that you'd also prefer them."

"I do. My father used to make them for me, my aunt still does whenever I manage to make it home- ooooh, are those strawberries and homemade whipped cream?" the warrior nearly drenched herself in the syrup on her plate diving for the mound of whipped cream before the Ascian took pity on her and moved it closer.

"Warrior, your table manners leave something to be desired."

"Look, I grew up in a house where if there was food, it was a warzone. If you waited around for table manners, you'd starve." She took another massive bite of food before swallowing and continuing, "It drives Alphinaud insane actually. He's constantly afraid I'm going to insult some dignitary or another during state events. Every time a nation suggests discussing or celebrating over a meal, he practically shudders."

The warrior continued shoveling food into her face as she took in the domestic sight of the man in front of her rolling up his sleeves before washing the dishes he'd used to cook. She'd consumed three pieces of french toast and left nearly half the pile was gone before he snatched a few off those the remained before sitting across from her.

"I'm afraid I can't blame him." He said, carefully cutting into his food.

"I can't imagine you shopping." Even before, she'd usually been the one to bring food back, if she'd left it up to him, he would've created all the ingredients and then whined about how it didn't taste as good as it did with real food.

"Even Ascians need to eat, warrior. We don't subsist on aether alone, especially when possessing a human form."

"I know, I can imagine as such, I'm just trying to picture Emporer Solus down at the market buying milk and eggs."

"Please, warrior. I do not 'go to the market.' I pay one of the locals in the village above to purchase a supply of food for me once a week."

"Ahh, that sounds more fitting."

"Warrior, I will rescind my promise that no harm will come to you if you touch my remaining french toast." He said, eyeing her suspiciously as she glanced with longing at the two pieces he had left.

"Fine," she said with a pout, before finishing off the bowl of strawberries and resisting the urge to lick the bowl of whipped cream clean.

"You indeed are a heathen." He'd resorted to half-guarding the last piece on his plate before reluctantly rolling his eyes and pushing the plate toward her. True to what Hades should've been expecting to be form, the warrior just shoved the entire piece into her mouth at once.

"Sowwy, ish ben liek tweve towsind years vough."

"I'm not even going to pretend I understood what you just said."

"I said, thanks!" The warrior replied brightly. 

Hades looked away from her smiling face, "What happens now?"

"I don't know. I knew you'd tricked us in some manner or another when you disappeared since I could still feel your aether and also that's, er, not how Ascian die?" She warrior said, shrinking in on herself a bit before continuing and avoiding the pointed look he was giving her, and trying to ignore the pain in her chest.

"Right now, I'm on a bit of an extended vacation, but ultimately someone will track me down, if not to just point me in the direction of the next thing I'm expected to kill." The warrior plopped her head onto her hand, feeling weary at the very thought.

"And is that going to be me?"

"What? No? Do you think I typically eat the food my enemy makes me before I kill them? Why would I need to kill you now? Do I still need to kill you?" She rambled off quickly. She didn't want to kill Hades, especially now that she had memories of being married to him.

"Well, for my part, I confess I'd rather prefer you didn't. I'm fond of being alive."

"I'm fond of you being alive too," The warrior replied before realizing what she'd said and turning as red as the strawberries she'd just eaten.

"Ahh, so you do admit to liking me."

The warrior took to burying her head in her arms, nearly putting her face, and succeeding with putting some of her hair into the plate she'd neglected to clean up. At least she'd smell like maple syrup. "Ugghhh. I admit to not disliking you. I was rather fond of you before the whole... Zodiark... thing?"

"Nothing like boiling down the first primal by half a planet of sacrifices down into a 'thing.'"

"Agghh, what do you want from me, Emet-Selch? Do you want me to be mad at you for being an idiot? Is that what you've been waiting for, for all this time? Or do you still, at the end of the day, believe that summoning Zodiark was the right thing to do? Because if you want to have a shouting match right here about all the idiotic things you've done since I died the first? time (I think?)", she trailed off momentarily, searching through what memories she could place, "we can do that. Or I can gather my friends, some of whom may or may not be shades of friends we had back when the planet was whole, and we can battle again. Figure out what you want to do now that you've got some semblance of choice about it. I'll be in the training room." Slamming her hands down on the counter, she stood up to walk away.

"Warrior, wait."

The warrior sighed, halfway to the training room, turning back to look at him. "I have a name, you know. You're allowed to use it."

"I'm not sure I even know what it is."

"The funny part is, you do." She gave him a brief smile.

His eyes widened momentarily as he looked at her in disbelief, "Your parents on the Source did not name you Persephone."

"You may not believe it, but they did. My parents said it was an old family name, passed down through the generations. My family's huge. I have a great-great Aunt Persephone too, because they'd run out of names that hadn't been used by the time they got to me, and they said it just 'felt right.'"

Persephone continued her journey into the training room. While she certainly didn't feel up to battling anything primal-sized yet, she was itching for the exercise training would bring her. She hardly noticed Hades following her into the room as he leaned against a wall watching her while she picked between the different weapons in the room, weighing each one and attempting to determine what felt right for the day. Tentatively deciding on a rapier for the moment as it would allow her red mage skills would warm up both her magic and physical abilities, she began a simple warm-up routine.

"Do you have a preferred weapon?" Hades asked after a time. She'd gone between a rapier, a gunblade, and an arcanist tome three bells later.

"No, not really. I train on all weapons pretty equally; what I use typically depends on what I'm going to fight. I'm more naturally inclined toward the ranged weapons, so I typically train with them a bit less."

"Still the same then."

"I'm curious. In your eyes, how much have I or have I not changed from my original soul?"

"That is a rather complex question. You're still just as much of a heathen as you've ever been with food. You fight much the same, still seem to have some affinity for botany, but you're quieter than you had been. Before everything happened, you would've still spent bells training, but if I'd been in here with you, you'd have chattered my ear off about one thing or another."

"Hm," Persephone said, missing the moment when Hades rolled his eyes in amusement as she continued to slash away at the training dummy, having swapped to a dark knight's weapon while he talked.

"You're just as determined to protect though. In hindsight, it should've been obvious that you'd never support the plan with Zodiark. It was your job to protect, as the Warden."

"Warden?" Persephone asked, putting down the blade momentarily to look over at him.

"Your position. Just as I was the Architect, Elidibus the Emissary, you served as the Warden on the convocation before you resigned."

"What was my title, then?" She'd known she served on the convocation, and that it had involved fighting, but the intricacies of what exactly her role had been missing still.

"Phosphorus."

The warrior scrunched her nose up at the word, "I don't like it."

"You never did. I'm surprised you don't remember continually pestering the convocation to change the title to something else, even though it had been that since time immemorial."

"It's just such a mouthful. Too many syllables. Lahabrea was bad enough."

"You did typically call him 'Laha,' much to his chagrin."

"I remember that! Oh man, it was always so much fun to see the look on his face right after. It's what he got from trying to be all stuffy and grumpy. Once you've seen someone naked and covered in mud, you just can't take them seriously anymore."

"The two of you were less than a century old at the time, practically the toddlers that you all call three-year-olds now."

"Yeah, but that still doesn't change the fact that I could give him a noogie even after we were respectable adults."

"One of you was a respectable adult. The other was you."

"Hah! That didn't stop you from getting all jealous of the time I spent with Elidibus."

"How was I supposed to know you thought of him as a brother? We'd be out, and I'd be trying to woo your attentions and the second you'd hear he'd returned from whatever far-flung place he'd visited you'd be scrambling off to find him."

"He always brought me presents!"

Persephone nearly froze at the smile on Hades' face. There it was. For the moment at least, he was the man she could mostly remember bonding with. She knew there was a smile completely covering her face.

"Do you have any tea?"

"What kind of house do you think I have, Persephone? Of course, I have tea."

"Will you make me some?" She asked, giving him the best puppy eyes she could.

"Fine. But stop looking at me like that, you look like a bug."

"A bug you marrriiieeeddd!"

"Deplorable heathen."

"I think you mean the bestest wife ever! Hades, if you keep rolling your eyes like that, you're going to get them stuck that way, and then I don't know if I can stay married to you if you look like that."

"If I can remain married to you despite you trying to kill me, you can remain married to me even if I end up cross-eyed because of you."

"Finnnneeee. But, tea?"

"Very well. Come with me."

Persephone followed Hades back into the kitchen, taking a seat at the bar counter. It was peaceful, she thought, watching him make tea. He had the patience for it the way they both knew that she didn't have. She'd already tried reaching for the cup once only to him glare at her each time she'd tried. By the third attempt, he'd subtly moved the cups slightly further out of reach.

They spent a few bells drinking tea and reminiscing about the memories that Persephone could recall, which was how Hades abruptly learned that Persephone did not like being called 'old' as in 'forgetful in her old age.' She kept reminding him that all the time she spent dead and in the lifestream shouldn't count against her, which meant that he was practically a cradle robber at this point.

At some point, they'd migrated over to the couch where Persephone had hesitantly put her legs over Hades' while they chatted. She'd avoided eye contact while doing so, but the Ascian had merely given her a look like she would be responsible for cleaning his clothes if she got them dirty, although he'd pulled her legs closer.

Naturally, that was how Alisaie found them later.

"I'm not sure I quite even know how to ask what's going on here." Alisaie said, after the initial 'Oh Hydaelyn, it's Emet-Selch, and he has the hero captive, I should kill him' wore off into 'Right, he's maybe not evil anymore, should I kill him, Persephone?'

Persephone released a long sigh. "I assume there's some sort've an emergency the resulted in you tracking me down."

"No. I was just... worried. It's been a few weeks since we'd seen you, and after what you talked to us about before-"

"It's all going... fine," She said, briefly looking over at Hades. He was nearly torn looking as Alisaie, and it left Persephone wondering if she was going to have more of a problem than she thought getting the two sides to get along.

"The warrior is right, she's fine, you can go now." He finally said at length.

"Emet-Selch!" Persephone stepped on his foot on for him to dodge out of the way, leaving the warrior temporarily stumbling. She sent a glare his way, but it only seemed to amuse him further.

"Phosphorus," Hades replied grinning. Alisaie was looking between the two Ancients with what Persephone could only describe as mild amusement. Persephone's answering glare told him she still knew where the couch was and that she could find a way to make him sleep on it. A moment later she realized that Alisaie now also knew her title.

"Nooo, don't tell Alisaie, now she'll use it to pester me too." Persephone cried, leaving the elezen in the room laughing because it was true. Alisaie was going to tell Alphinaud the next time she wanted something out of him, and then he'd blackmail her with the name before they went to any formal function to get her to behave appropriately.

The three eventually moved into the living room and sat to have the most uncomfortable conversation possibly in history. Alisaie still looked ready to leap to Persephone's defense at any minute, Hades looked ready to defend himself at any minute, and Persephone still wasn't entirely sure who she'd end up needed to defend if something did lead them to blows.

And so, the warrior intentionally avoided talking about anything either of them could get upset about, and talked for half a bell about her family and all the new cousins she'd met, and how nice it was that her family all but forget that at the end of the day she was the Warrior of Light and kept asking her to change diapers, which Persephone had happily done just because of the sheer delight in doing something normal. Neither Alisaie nor Hades had seemed to understand why the warrior would enjoy the task, but they didn't want to appear to be in agreement of something either, so neither pressed her on the issue.

Persephone pestered Alisaie for details about their friends and the status of the Crystarium and Eulmore. Eventually, Alisaie got to the real point of her visit, aside from ensuring that the hero hadn't gotten herself killed. "The truth is, Thancred, Ryne and Urianger do seem to be up to something, but I think I can delay whatever it is for a few more days, maybe a week if I con Alphinaud into helping."

"Uggghhh. Why can't the world stay saved, for more than a month at a time?"

"You could just not have saved it over and over, that would certainly have made my job a lot easier before. What?" Hades said, looking between the glares both Persephone and Alisaie were sending his way, "too soon? But seriously, warrior, nothing says you have to be the one to solve every problem."

"I'm not." She said in response. "Truly, the Scions usually do a lot of the work before I get involved in anything, it's just we don't have the same network here that we do on the Source. What I wouldn't give for Tataru."

At the tilted eyebrow Hades sent her way, Persephone elaborated. "Tataru does a little bit of everything for the Scions. I don't really know where we'd be without her, but her information network is astounding. You'd like her, I think."

Hades sent a non-commital sound back to her and Persephone abruptly remembered that she wasn't even sure how much he liked her at the moment beyond 'I won't kill you,' and with an embarrassed blush she turned back to Alisaie. The warrior missed the frown on the Ascian's face in response as he looked back to her, but Alisaie noted the moment.

"Anyway, thanks, Alisaie. I'll be back to check on whatever they've gotten themselves into if I haven't heard from you before then in a week." The two walked toward the door. "But let me walk you back to the Auracite. You can finish telling me about what the Chai's have been up to. Emet-Selch, I'll be back shortly." The warrior said, stepping out the door before he could answer and shutting it behind her.

The two Scions walked a distance from the home before Alisaie asked her how she was really doing. "Fine, really, I think. It's just... awkward? He's not the same Emet-Selch he was before we fought, and he's not really the same Emet-Selch he was before Zodiark, and I don't even know if he wants us to be the same as we were back then."

"Do you want it to be the same as it was back then? As I understand it, you aren't really the same person you were back then either."

"Gods help me, but yes. No, I might not be exactly the same as I was during the days when the planet was whole, but I'm not truly that different either. My job has always been to protect, and I'm still doing that now. I think it was less that Hydaelyn made me her champion and more that when I made Hydaelyn, I was the champion. Ever have I been The Warden, Ancient of Light. And even if I wasn't? Oh Alisaie, my heart still longs for those thousands of moments we'd spent together."

"Then I think you owe it to both of yourselves to figure out what he wants from you now. I might not know nearly anything about relationships, but I know that you'd be better off for both knowing that much." Persephone was resisting the urge to sniffle when they reached the Aetheryte. "Thanks, Alisaie. For being able to look past more easy answer being that I'm crazy."

"Hearts ever do make us do crazy things. Take care Persephone, and tell Emet-Selch I said goodbye."

"I will," the warrior said smiling, as the elezen teleported away.

"The elezen is right. We do need to talk." Hades said, walking out from the nearby alley.

Persephone froze. She should’ve known he’d follow her, but it was practically impossible to sense him in this city he’d poured his aether into.

“No,” She said, with a huff. Turning to look at him, she could see the stunned look on Hades’ face. He looked like he’d come to break her heart, and Persephone wasn’t going to let him unless he gave her a real reason to.

“No, I’m not going to let you say any number of stupid reasons you’re thinking to end this before it’s even re-started. If you’re going to break my heart today Hades, you’re going to do it for the right reasons, and not whatever dumb ones you’ve thought up right now are.”

“Pray, do tell me what those reasons are then.” He’d drawled back at her. He’d deny it, but she could tell he was mildly amused. Good. An amused Hades made for a better audience than an annoyed one.

“The right reasons? Oh no, I’m not going to tell you those. But I am going to go through your list of dumb ones and tell you just how foolish they are.” Persephone whirled back around again, stalking her way through the city. Somewhere in this ghost town was the place she was looking for, and if she let her feet do the walking, she was hoping they’d take her there.

“First, you’re thinking that I’m not “really” your Persephone, which let me tell you Emet-Selch, the thirteenth of your name is wrong. There is a before and an after, but we are the same soul, the same person. I may look different, but what Amaurotine didn’t get bored of their appearance once in a while and change how they looked?” Persephone glared over at him. She knew this would be the first point he’d try and bring against her, and likely the one she’d be fighting against for some time yet.

“I could list a hundred ways where I am exactly the same as I’ve ever been, but I’d like to think that even you would grant that after twelve millennia I’m granted some room to be different.”

“I will grant-”

“Nope!” Persephone laughed, continuing. “I’m not even close to done. We’re only on the first reason!” The warrior smiled, seeing Hades shake his head and gestured for her to continue.

“Very well, I, after all, have all the time in the world remaining, unlike you.”

“Oooh, was that supposed to sting? Joke’s on you, Hades, I don’t think I’m aging “properly”. I should be somewhere around thirty, but physically I don’t think I’ve aged since the last calamity. I’m fairly certain that with Ardbert’s soul it will have slowed it even more. I have no idea how long I’ll live, assuming it’s not in a blaze of glory.” Persephone ignored the brief squeezing in her chest. While the twins and Urianger would live longer lives than most in her acquaintance, she’d outlive most of her friends and family by far.

“And that wasn’t even my second point, but thanks for that.” Was it somewhere around here? They were halfway across the city, but Persephone still hadn’t found what she was looking for.

“And what would your second point be?”

“I was getting to that. What was it… Ah! You would’ve said something about how we’re on opposite sides of this war, but I don’t think we are. I think we both want to free our people from Zodiark and that that is far more important than rejoining the shards. I think that was an ends to a mean but not one that is ultimately necessary. I think the sundered will eventually rejoin on their own, without intervention.” Persephone said, glancing over at him.

“Third,” she said, cutting off whatever he was going to say next, “I love you.” This reason was the hardest one, and she was grateful she’d finally got to her destination as she’d reached it.

It was a garden. It wasn’t large, it wasn’t grandiose or elaborate, but it was theirs. One of the first things Hades had ever made while training to be the architect had been this garden, and it had been for her. Scarcely more than a few flower beds and some trees, the highlight for Persephone had always been the swing in the center.

It wasn’t a typical decoration in an Amaurotine park, but this wasn’t really meant for the typical proper Amaurotine that Persephone had never really been. She’d loved the way the swing made it feel like she was flying. If Hades was going to break her heart, he was going to do it right here, where he’d pledged to love her forever, where she’d achingly thousands of years later torn most of that pledge away.

She walked over to the swing, sitting on it and swaying a little, before she looked over at man who’d once sworn to Lahabrea and Elidibus that he wouldn’t do what she knew even after everything she’d said that he’d do next. So while she wasn’t surprised with followed next, her heart broke all the same.

“The only fault I can see with your reasoning then Persephone would be this: what if I do not love you?”

“Then I guess you found the right reason.” It was thus a confusing thing, when Hades walked in front of her, kneeling and wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Tis a good thing that’s not how I feel then.” He was smiling up at her, like the giant jerk he was.

“I hate you,” Persephone replied, half laughing, half crying. Why was she in love with this infuriating man?

“No you don’t, you love me, you just told me that.” Hades was reaching his soul toward her own, and Persephone’s arched against it like a cat. She could feel every bit of his love, and joy, and laughter as much as she could see it on his face.

“No, I changed my mind, now I hate you.”

“Then tis a good thing I’ve got plenty of time to change your mind.”

“You’ve got a week more or less before I’m expected back.”

“While I appreciate the week to have you all to myself, warrior, I fully intend to join you on your next adventure.”

Persephone’s almost looking forward to it. But first, there’s a couch for Hades to be made to sleep on.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I got to the end and was like 'Alright Hades, now BREAK HER HEART' and wrote something like 5k more words only for Hades to be like 'nope.' and refuse to willingly go along with the plan.
> 
> Hey! Do you read FFXIV fics (I know you do, you're reading this)? Join our Discord! https://discord.gg/GsPXrc5  
We're a gang of FFXIV readers/writers/artists/game players who are all incredibly supportive of each other and somehow both thirsty and wholesome! (I may or may not have made an Emet-Selch bot~~~ )


End file.
